Page:The Revolt of the Angels v2.djvu/145

 “Oh, no! Monsieur l’Abbé,” he cried, “it is not Eugène Delacroix’s pictures that have been troubling me. I didn’t so much as look at them. I am completely indifferent to that kind of art.”

“Well, then, my son, believe me: there is no truth, no reality, in any of the story you have just related to me. Your guardian angel has certainly not appeared to you.”

“But, Abbé,” replied Maurice, who had the most absolute confidence in the evidence of the senses, “I saw him tying up a woman’s shoe-laces and putting on the trousers of a suicide.”

And stamping his feet on the asphalt, Maurice called as witnesses to the truth of his words the sky, the earth, all nature, the towers of St. Sulpice, the walls of the great seminary, the Fountain of the Quatre Évêques, the public lavatory, the cabmen’s shelter, the taxis and motor [sic]’buses’ shelter, the trees, the passers-by, the dogs, the sparrows, the flower-seller and her flowers.

The Abbé made haste to end the interview.

“All this is error, falsehood, and illusion, my child,” said he. “You are a Christian: think as a Christian,—a Christian does not allow himself to be seduced by empty shadows. Faith protects him against the seduction of the marvellous, he leaves credulity to freethinkers. There are credulous people for you—freethinkers! There is no humbug they will not swallow. But the Christian carries a